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Mission to East St. Louis Fulfills Spring Break
by Yonatan Arnold
Photos by Yonatan Arnold, Breanna Mason, and Amy Thrift
Click photos to enter gallery
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The Green Chair
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The Green Chair in the reading corner -- the one that is fuzzy and very comfortable, and you sink into it when you sit down -- that powerful chair means you have power to make a kid's day by reading to that child.
Sit in that chair for less than 10 minutes, and there will be an eager kid on your lap, wanting to read a book.
The young child's eyes are looking at the words and following along as you read the adventure book she picked out. The chair rocks as the reading goes along, and then you see out of the corner of your eye a friend. Before long you notice that you have two kids sitting on each side, wanting to join in on the reading fun.
A group of Mars Hill College student volunteers discovered the green chair and the children who came to it during a recent visit to the Christian Activity Center in East St. Louis.
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The Group
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Even as many other students took time off during Spring Break to relax in the sun or spend time with family, 17 Mars Hill students and three staff members went to East Saint Louis to spend time volunteering with inner city youth. The members of LifeWorks and the Christian Student Movement (CSM) spent four days at the Christian Activity Center (CAC).
The CAC offers a daily after-school program for about 200 neighborhood children from ages 4 to 18. Activities range from jumping on a trampoline and playing basketball to dancing and rap singing in a recording studio, and even doing homework and reading some good books.
The CAC website describes the center as "a nonprofit, faith-based ministry located in the heart of East St. Louis. Founded in 1907, it is one of the oldest, largest and most successful youth service providers in southern Illinois."
The group of 20 stayed at Winstanley Baptist Church in Fairview Heights, Illinois, about a fifteen-minute drive from the center. The church provided the group with a kitchen and two showers.
The students of Mars Hill were joined by a group of about eight girls from the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Both groups lived together for the week, with the UNH group in one room, and the Mars Hill group in three -- one room for the men and two for the ladies. The students could sleep in the rooms or could sleep in the large entertainment area that had foosball, a pool table, and many sofas. The groups used the kitchen to cook the evening dinner and snack lunches during the day.
Every afternoon the two groups volunteered and helped with the CAC activities. They were tutors in the homework room, library helpers in the reading corner, computer lab assistants in the Intel Computer Room, and recreation assistants in the basketball gym. They helped with cleaning the center up, picking up trash, and organizing things that needed to be put back in the right place.
The action started each day at about one p.m. at the center. The college volunteers would arrive early, before the children arrived from school.
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Chet Cantrell
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The first day at the center, Drew Phillips, the center's chaplain, gave the introductory welcome. Chet Cantrell, the center's executive director and a 1983 graduate of Mars Hill College, talked about the history of the area and the history of the CAC. Cantrel is one of the many people who got involved about 26 years ago in an aggressive campaign to upgrade the center and its services.
East St. Louis is located in Illinois, across the river from St. Louis, Missouri, and it is a separate city. About 98 percent of its residents are African-American. Most of the families near the center live in housing projects.
Much of the neighborhood around the center is caught in a cycle of poverty and crime. There are bullet holes in the stop signs. Sometimes you see teddy bears on the signs, placed there in memory of a child that has been killed. The school sign that says "This is a Drug-Free and Gun-Free zone" is a dose of reality. The sign at the edge of the road as you drive into East St. Louis is full of irony and hope: "City of Champions: Life More Abundantly (sic.)."
Chet told the volunteers what they would be doing and that we all would see it play out as the children came in at about 3:15 p.m. from school.
Our main job, he said, was to build relationships with the kids; showing that we care about them.
The Green chair in the reading room attracted two little girls right away -- but not for long. Their names were Diamond and Mace, and they both had a lot of energy. Mace was running around wanting to get chased, and Diamond was following her for a little bit.
You followed the first little girl, who is very smart indeed, down the stairs to the gym. The basketball gym is very nice. No chewing gum is allowed in the center, and you can see why the gym is so nice because of that rule.
The Mars Hill College volunteers found many things to do. The center has a recording studio for the kids so that they can write their own music and then record it. MHC staff member Leslie Anderson helped the kids out with the writing of the music. On one of the days, the little girls were rapping and singing about popcorn.
There were was a trampoline that the kids loved to jump on. They would have to ask before jumping, or Oliver (William Oliver, the center activities director) would stop eating and chase them off. He was full of jokes, and the children respected him.
Everyone knew Drew Phillips, the CAC chaplain. Drew would walk into the gym and play basketball with the little kids and even almost get beat. He would be the leader for the devotional at the end of the day before the center closed at 8 p.m.
MHC Junior Ryan Cauble was loved by the kids because of his crazy basketball skills that he laid out on the basketball court. He almost lost a game to a middle school teenager, but he won.
Freshman Paul (Yerbol) Bolat also liked to play basketball. He would play and then stop for a bit and then play again. Every time you saw him, he was playing a very intense basketball game with the older kids from the center.
Upstairs in the center, MHC volunteers Chelsea Daugherty and Seth Clark tutored and helped the kids with their homework. Breanna Mason built things with blocks with a kid name Dee. Todd Boling and Casey Boston played the game Clue with three kids on the little round table. If you want to know how many ways to play a game, then come to the CAC.
Kelly Hollahan was often found upstairs reading a book to a group of children. Every time you turned around, she was reading a book to someone. Anna Thrift, Bryan Moore, and Kaitlyn Allen helped students with math and reading.
Downstairs, you might find Todd Allen playing monopoly with Mace and Diamond in the Intel Computer Room. Rachel Buller might be playing foosball and air hockey. Amy Thrift would often have a little girl with her, just smiling and happy to be with her.
In the gym you would see Joseph Majak, talking to a teenager and listening to his life story. Rachel Roberts would be led by youngsters to a water fountain and then to the gym to play some basketball. Heather Wright would be talking to the kids about who they are and who they want to be. Then there was Kate Prichard, who would be in the basketball gym and then in the reading corner.
The Mars Hill volunteers stayed very busy but had time to rest. When the children arrived, they went to the snack room and had some popcorn and even a small meal.
The Mars Hill girls learned how to dance. The CAC girls gave them a dance lesson, with the boom-box on the court and the bench seats up. Many of the Mars Hill girls got their hair braided. The CAC girls would come up to them and just start braiding their hair.
At the end of the week, Senior Heather Wright found that words weren't enough to describe what the trip meant to her. "I cannot express in mere words how incredibly wonderful and special the children at the CAC were. Each of them is an amazing individual with this joy that I've never seen before."
CAC Associate Director Russell Smith, who started to work at the CAC in the summer of 1995, said that over the years he has come to appreciate "the spirit of the community here in East St. Louis." Smith thanked the Mars Hill group for their volunteer work and urged them to come back and visit again.
| Members of the Mission | | Kaitlyn R. Allen, freshman; Todd C. Allen, sophomore; Yonatan Arnold, freshman; Yerbol Bolat, freshman; Kasey C. Boston, sophomore; Rachel M. Buller, freshman; Ryan F. Cauble, junior Seth A. Clark, freshman; Chelsea L. Daugherty, sophomore; Keely B. Hollahan, senior; Joseph M. Majak, junior; Breanna L. Mason, freshman; Bryan D. Moore, sophomore; Rachel J. Roberts, sophomore; Anna C. Thrift, freshman; Amy L. Thrift, freshman; Heather L. Wright, senior. Kate Prichard, MHC 2007. Leslie Anderson, director of medical services Todd Boling, college chaplain |
LINKS
The Christian Activity Center
Photo Gallery
Personal Reflections:
Kate Prichard
Heather Wright
Rachel Buller
Breanna Mason
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